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Iranian Government Bans Western Music

"TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has banned Western music from Iran's radio and TV stations, reviving one of the harshest cultural decrees from the early days of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Songs such as George Michael's "Careless Whisper," Eric Clapton's "Rush" and the Eagles' "Hotel California" have regularly accompanied Iranian broadcasts, as do tunes by saxophonist Kenny G.

But the official IRAN Persian daily reported Monday that Ahmadinejad, as head of Iran's Supreme Cultural Revolutionary Council, ordered the enactment of an October ruling by the council to ban Western music."

I must admit that banning "Careless Whisper" does sound like a good idea ;-)

Hard liners on borrowed time?

I read earlier today that much of Iran will just shrug this off. There seems to be a substantial youth movement in Iran that is more progressive and open to Western culture than the hard liners. It will take time for the old hard line generation to die off and make way for new more open minded leadership but perhaps one day Iran will become, by their own choice, the Democratic State we are failing to create through force in Iraq. Til then lets just hope our leadership doesn't come up with another bogus reason to invade yet another country.

Until then, banning more boy bands would be fine with me.

"I can picture every move that a man could make
getting lost in her loving is your first mistake

Sometimes I think its a sin
When I feel like I'm winning when I'm losing again"

In fact, in Iran, ppl don't give a damn what's on the official tv! Underground satellite is so widespread, you can hardly find a home without one. (though it is illegal!) Apart from international ones, there are about 30 persian-language channels broadcasting from abroad on the satellite(while the official TV has only 7 channels!)

This is an example of the fact that It is not possible to totaly ban a nation from what it wants, no matter how harsh and dictator the government is.